Various dunnage conversion machines crumple a sheet stock material into a strip of dunnage useful as a packaging material. Exemplary dunnage conversion machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,540,652 and 6,387,029, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Dunnage conversion machines typically include a feeding assembly that includes opposed members for engaging and advancing a crumpled strip of the stock material. Usually, one of the opposed members is a rotating member mounted on a shaft that can move transversely towards and away from the other opposed member to accommodate variations in thickness of the crumpled strip. These thickness variations can be substantial, especially when using different stock materials. The stock material can be composed of one or more plies of paper, the number of plies can be varied, and the one or more plies of the stock material can include plies with different bias weights to impart different dunnage characteristics to the strip of dunnage produced by the conversion machine. Consequently, the thickness and characteristics of the dunnage strip passing through the feeding assembly can vary significantly, which can present problems or adverse performance in known dunnage conversion machines.